Obama names IMF official to U.S. Treasury post

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Monday named International Monetary Fund deputy research director Charles Collyns as the U.S. Treasury's new assistant secretary for international finance.

As the No. 2 official in the Treasury's international affairs section, Collyns will be responsible for representing the Treasury's interests among multilateral financial institutions such as the IMF, World Bank and international development banks.

He will report to the nominee for undersecretary for international affairs, Lael Brainard, whose nomination is still being vetted by the Senate Finance Committee. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that that a nomination hearing for Brainard was being held up by an inquiry regarding her personal taxes.

A spokeswoman for the panel's ranking Republican, Sen. Charles Grassley, declined to confirm a tax inquiry and said only that the vetting process was still underway.

Political debate over health care reform has diverted the committee's attention and resources away from nomination hearings.

Collyns, who has a doctorate in economics from Oxford University, has been at the IMF's research department since 2006 and leads the team responsible for preparing the institution's "World Economic Outlook," a widely followed series of forecasts on the global economy and individual countries.

He has held a range of jobs at the IMF, including heading the IMF's work on Japan from 1997 to 2001, on the United States from 2001 to 2003 and on Brazil from 2004 to 2006. He co-authored "Post-Bubble Blues: How Japan Responded to Asset Price Collapse" and publications on Latin American financial crises.

(Reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Dan Grebler)